History of Wake Forest College, Volume IV (1943-1967)
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VII A College on the Move While the campaign against Dr. Tribble rumbled, the work of the college went on. Because the seminary was expanding, space was more restricted than ever, and the literary societies had given up one of their halls to provide an additional classroom for the theological students. As frequently as he could, the president was spending two days each week in Winston-Salem on the building and development programs. One of Tribble's solicitations for financial aid took an unexpected turn which was to result in substantial scholarship support for thousands of future Wake Forest students. That came about through a bequest of Col. George Foster Hankins, a Lexington alumnus who said he would rather help students than lay bricks. His will, made public in 1954, provided more than a million dollars for assistance to needy young people. Other friends of the college had worked with Colonel Hankins during his lifetime to secure the funds for Wake Forest. Dr. Tribble also announced toward the end of 1954 that the Reyn- olds Foundation had agreed to increase its annual contribution from $350,000 to $500,000 and to add $40,000 for every million raised by the Baptist State Convention for capital needs at Wake Forest. The little bonus was added to spur North Carolina Baptists to greater effort. Their performance already had been noteworthy. In a chapel talk in January 1955, Dr. Tribble said that during the building decade 1945-55 the Baptist State Convention had given Wake Forest more financial support than it had in the previous 120 years of the college's history. This was true even though more than